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LINCOLN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"This portrait is made from a photograph taken during
the campaign of 1858. Photography was then in its
infancy, and Mr. Lincoln is reported to have said this
was the first photograph for which he ever sat."

LINCOLN

BY
ISAAC NEWTON PHILLIPS

REPORTER OF DECISIONS OF
THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT

CHICAGO

A. C. McCLURG & CO.

Copyright, 1901, by Isaac N. Phillipi

Copyright, 1910
A. C. McClcrg & Co.
Published Feb. 12, 1910

PUBLISHERS PRESS
CHICAGO

*Tiet us have faith that right makes
might, and in that faith let us, to the end,
dare to do our duty as we understand it."
— Lincoln 's Speech at Cooper Institute, New TorJc.

EXPLANATORY

XT is proper, I think, to say to the reader
^ that what is here printed is, with slight
corrections and enlargements, identical with
an address which I prepared ten years or
more ago. The address was delivered before
several Illinois audiences— among others, be-
fore the faculty and students of the Uni-
versity of Illinois at Urbana. The language
used is, therefore, less impersonal than would
be proper in a monograph written for publi-
cation. I have, however, thought best not to
change the form of its presentation, but let
it go into print substantially as delivered.

T ]sr p

Bloomington, III., •

January 15, 1910.

LINCOLN

WHEN Abraham Lincoln,
after having been
named for President,
was questioned by a
campaign biographer as to his early
life, he very pathetically said the
whole story might be told in a
single line of Gray's ''Elegy," —
" The short and simple annals of the poor,"

All the world has now learned that
the man who spoke thus modestly
of himself was born in the State of
Kentucky on the twelfth day of
February, 1809. His cradle, if he
ever had one, stood upon the dirt
floor of a rude log hut; above it was
a clap-board roof; about it was that
kind of superstition which an iso-

[1]

LINCOLN

lated people, full of rude elemental
force, is apt to manifest, and that
kind of poverty which, in a new
and free country, casts no shadow
of degradation, for it is not the ab-
sence of goods but the invidious
and blighting contrast of conditions
which constitutes real poverty. This
boy, too, was surrounded by people
who were profoundly ignorant of
the world and of the ways of men,
and almost as profoundly ignorant
of all bookish learning. It is cer-
tain that the humblest child in the
whole country might now, within
the limits of a single year, have the
benefit of a far better schooling
than was accessible to Lincoln in
the time covering all the years of
his minority. His surroundings

[2]

LINCOLN

from birth to manhood remained
practically unchanged, and, al-
though his roving father made in
that time something more than the
number of removes which Poor
Richard deemed "equal to one
fire," there is no evidence that in
the first twenty -one years of his
life Abraham Lincoln met with any
personal example, or fell under
any social influence, which would
ordinarily be expected to quicken
his mind, arouse his hope, or in-
spire his ambition.

^T^HE rise of one of the greatest
statesmen of history from an
environment apparently so luck-
less, naturally awakens intense in-
terest and even enthusiasm. But

[3]

LINCOLN

the phenomenon is less wonderful
than it seems. Had Lincoln arisen
from out the slums of a great city,
or even from the social opulence
and pampered ease of a palace at
Newport, to the intellectual and
moral plane where the assassin's
bullet found him, the case would
be more truly wonderful than it
is. Though of obscure parentage,
Abraham Lincoln was, in breeding,
no mongrel. In spite of the indus-
trious muck-rakes of shameless so-
called biographers, it is now known
that, both through his father and
his mother, this boy received rich
strains of honest English blood —
blood which had been strengthened
and sweetened on its course
through the veins of generations of

LINCOLN

sturdy American pioneers. He
lived with Nature and learned of
her. He toiled, but his toil was
never hopeless and degrading. His
feet were upon the earth, but the
stars, shining in perennial beauty,
were ever above him to inspire con-
templation. He heard the song of
the thrush and the carol of the lark.
He watched the sun in its course.
He knew the dim paths of the
forest, and his soul was awed by
the power of the storm. Out from
the heart of Nature's solitudes he
brought all the elements of high
success: namely, a good heart, a
clear head, and a strong body; and
these factors, under the stimulating
influence of free institutions, at
length wrought in the rude back-

[5]

LINCOLN

woodsman a wonderful personal
transfiguration, the successive
stages of which my plan does not
permit me to trace.

At the day of his death Lincoln's
reputation had already filled the
world, and the intense popular af-
fection for his memory, which still
constantly grows, although its sub-
ject has been for nearly half a cen-
tury in his tomb, may be regarded
as the sure sign of one of those
transcendent fames such as popular
favor confers scarcely once in a
century.

A S a politician Abraham Lincoln

was in breadth and sincerity

the superior, and in shrewdness

and success the full equal, of

[6]

LINCOLN

Thomas Jefferson; yet he was much
more than a politician. No man of
his age wrote more effective Eng-
lish than he; yet it is not as a
rhetorician that Americans revere
him. His keenness of humor and
aptness of anecdote were never sur-
passed by any public man; yet
history sternly refuses to regard
Abraham Lincoln as a jester. He
was a patriot, high and true; but
patriotism does not distinguish
him, for in his day many others
were also patriots, giving even life
to the cause. He was a statesman
of prodigious breadth and grasp
— fearless, imperturbable, self-re-
liant— and when he judged prin-
ciple to be at stake, absolutely
immovable ; yet even the high term

[7]

N C O L N

"statesman" does not express
quite the full measure of Lincoln,
or of Lincoln's fame. To all these
elements he united a personality
the most striking, the most singu-
lar, and the most original which is
met with in history, and beneath
it all lay the unfathomable mystery
of a human soul. In the depths of
that rugged and pathetic face were
the signs of a spirit that in its
highest moments communed with
itself and walked alone, —

"His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart."

pUBLIC life has its illusions and
fame has its counterfeits. The
relative importance of contempo-
rary historic characters, like the
relative height and size of adjacent

[8]

LINCOLN

mountains, is not fully known until
the whole group is seen from a dis-
tance. The vain and noisy little
man of each period "struts and
frets his hour upon the stage" with
such a deal of pomposity and show,
that he appears to his undiscrimi-
nating contemporaries quite as im-
portant as the real makers of
history. Like the "mother frog"
in the fable, he tries with breath
alone to puff himself up to a colos-
sal stature, and not unfrequently,
like the frog, collapses in the
process.

True greatness is the consecra-
tion of either great talents or great
character to the service of man-
kind. When we read the story of
a truly great life we learn of

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LINCOLN

high purposes pursued by effective
methods; we learn of a lofty devo-
tion to truth, of supreme faith in
the right, of heroic self-sacrifice ; in
short, we learn of a supreme strug-
gle of genius in the service of man-
kind. Then, too, a great cause is
necessary to a great public career.
Mere feats of intellectual agility
send no man's name to the Pan-
theon. There may, for aught I
know, be "mute, inglorious Mil-
tons" in this world, but so long as
they are mute they are inefficient.
During several years Lincoln filled
the public eye. He had a cause,
and directly in proportion to the
greatness of that cause was his ca-
reer great. That cause measures
Lincoln's public career, but it does

[10]

LINCOLN

not completely measure Lincoln.
After the voluminous biographies
have all been read; after the gar-
rulous "old settler," who never so
much as suspected the greatness of
the man in his lifetime, has related
his apochryphal "recollections,"
and told his mythical anecdotes —
always exaggerating his own famil-
iar relations with Lincoln — we feel
that there is a Lincoln still unre-
vealed who is now beginning to
fade away. It is this Lincoln whom
I shall endeavor to make known in
this brief study. I shall speak of
Lincoln in his. great character as
a statesman, and not as a gawk, a
buffoon, or a yarn -spinner.

[11]

LINCOLN

T T is necessary, however, that in
an appreciative study of Lin-
coln we take a comprehensive view
of his work. We must note that
which had preceded him as well as
that which immediately surrounded
him. I must ask you to bear with
me, therefore, while I go back a
little to find the historic back-
ground of our picture.

There was in the last century a
''critical period" of American his-
tory, which Mr. Fiske places be-
tween the surrender of Cornwallis
and the adoption of the Federal
Constitution. This period was
"critical" for the reason that in
that time it was painfully uncertain
whether a permanent union could
ever be formed of the xlmerican

[12]

LINCOLN

States. The upheaval of the Revo-
lution had unsettled the conserva-
tive force of the American mind,
and more follies than would have
re-filled Pandora's box a hundred
times had broken out in all the
American colonies — follies which
in their consequences threatened to
become even worse than ''taxation
without representation. ' '

Revolutions are not often well-
adapted to the training of states-
men. A very good revolutionary
patriot may be only a destruction-
ist, and destructionists are always
plenty and cheap. The hand that
wrote the Declaration of Indepen-
dence was not the hand to frame
the Federal Constitution. Samuel
Adams knew far better how to

[13]

LINCOLN

knock down King George than how
to set up George Washington, first
President of a great nation. Pat-
rick Henry could shout in a tem-
pest of eloquence, ' ' Give me liberty
or give me death!" but he was
scarcely less eloquent in resist-
ing the formation of the Federal
Union; while James Monroe, the
reputed author of the "Monroe
Doctrine," was very sure the adop-
tion of the Federal Constitution
would endanger, if not entirely de-
stroy, the people's liberties.

In this critical period two con-
flicting theories of government
contended for mastery in the Amer-
ican colonies. One side, led by
Washington, Hamilton, Franklin,
Madison, Jay, Marshall, and their

[1*]

LINCOLN

co-workers, realized the supreme
importance of a strong central au-
thority— a firm union of the States
under one stable government.
With the true national instinct
they appealed earnestly to the pa-
triotism and good sense of their
fellow-citizens. By bitter experi-
ence they knew the evils of a many-
headed confederacy of weak and
discordant States, which, if not
fused together, they knew would
waste all their energies in jealous
bickerings with each other, pre-
senting to the nations of the world
no broad frontage of sovereignty
and power. They knew a weak
government would produce confu-
sion at home and breed contempt
abroad, and, worse than all, would

[15]

LINCOLN

constantly invite foreign alliance
and intervention, to the final de-
struction of that independence
which had been purchased with so
much treasure and blood. The old
Federalists garnered and preserved
the fruits of the American Revolu-
tion. They believed that so long as
a government is "of the people"
and *'by the people" it will not
cease to be also ^^for the people."
The outcry of that day against
''consolidated government," with
which ambitious demagogues were
frightening the ignorant, did not
alarm the old Federalists, who
were the true friends of the people
and the real Republicans of their
day.

Such was the character of the

[16]

LINCOLN

party which bore us through the
critical period of our early history,
leaving us as a legacy the Federal
Union, which Lincoln, with the
help of the Union army, saved.

Opposed to the Federalists, how-
ever, was another party of polit-
ical philosophers, who, in their
dread of centralization, opposed
the adoption of the Federal Con-
stitution. In the days of war they
had been good destroyers, but they
were not equally good as builders.
The wrongs they had suffered un-
der King George not unnaturally
led them to distrust all forms of
government, hence centralization
meant to them only a renewal of
despotism. They thought the peo-
ple's only safeguard lay in the

[17]

LINCOLN

weakness of the central govern-
ment.

That was an age in which the in-
fection of "red republicanism" was
abroad in the world. Rousseau
had dreamed intoxicating and
contagious dreams. Voltaire had
philosophized and sneered. The
mad re -action against long -abused
power had come, and in France the
chasm was already opening to en-
gulf the monstrosities of ages.
Alexander Hamilton's wise saying
that ''the vigor of government is
essential to the security of liberty, ' '
was then, as a consequence, far less
appreciated than it is to-day.

In 1787, however, the country
was prostrate and the tottering old
Confederation was powerless to

[18]

LINCOLN

give relief. Riot, repudiation, and
anarchy were in the very air. As
a choice of evils the people at last,
with many misgivings, accepted the
Union. But it was power grudg-
ingly given, and repented by many
of the rampant revolutionists of
that day almost as quickly as
bestowed.

The heresy of 1787, that the best
government is the weakest govern-
ment, and that whatever govern-
ment we have should be distrusted
by the people and hampered as
much as possible in its action, in
order to insure the liberty of the
individual, survived in the form of
"State sovereignty" to produce in-
finite mischief during full three-
quarters of a century of our sub-

[19]

LINCOLN

sequent history. Attempts were
made, after the Constitution was
adopted, to practically nullify it by
what was called ''strict construc-
tion." The theory was held, that
each State of the Union had the
right to judge for itself what pow-
ers were conferred by the Constitu-
tion upon the national government.
Such was, in e:ffect, the doctrine of
the ''Virginia and Kentucky Reso-
lutions," and it was a doctrine sin-
cerely advocated in that day by
many men who were really at-
tached to the cause of civil liberty,
but who seemed not to know the
means by which, alone, can liberty
be insured.*

* Thomas Jefferson lived and died in the be-
lief that each State of the Union was a soTereign
nation, and that these several nations had, bj

[20]

LINCOLN

Later, the motives of the foes of
nationality changed. The slavery
question arose, and '^ strict con-
struction" and "State rights" —
at first largely speculative political
doctrines — became the pretext for
the slave power's frantic effort to
fortify and intrench slavery. Ac-
cordingly, in 1861, the old slavoc-
racy of the South, after long
threats, resolved to trample down

adopting the Constitution, formed a compact — a
sort of treaty — -which each of the States had a
right to construe for itself, there being no com-
mon judicial power over them. On April 8, 1826,
less than three months before he died, Jeffer-
son wrote a letter — being the last but four of
those preserved in his Works — in which letter he
said: " I think with you, also, that the Consti-
tution of the United States is a compact of inde-
pendent nations, subject to the rules acknowledged
in similar cases, as well that of amendment pro-
vided within itself, as, in case of abuse, the justly
dreaded but unavoidable ultimo ratio gentium."
— Jefferson's Works (Putnam), col, 10, p. 385.

[21]

LINCOLN

the government of George Wash-
ington and the grand old Federal-
ists, and upon its ruins to erect a
slave confederacy. And then it was
that the Union army, called into
being by Abraham Lincoln and act-
ing under his sagacious policy, met
and slew together both slavery and
State sovereignty. In the fierce
arbitrament of war, and through
the terrific adjudication of force
and blood, the Federal Constitu-
tion at length received its final and
authoritative construction.

T THUS recapitulate facts well
known merely to show that in
the constitutional development of
the nation Abraham Lincoln stands
in line of direct succession from

[22]

I. I N C O L TV

those great constructive statesmen
who formed and set in operation
the government of the United
States. He finished their great
work. In the highest sense he was
himself a constructive statesman.
He was a conservative, a saviom^
— not a destroyer. He stands pre-
eminently for law and order, for
the conservation of popular insti-
tutions, for human rights secured
and enforced — not by somebody's
uncertain impulse, but guaranteed
by inexorable public law.

Back of Lincoln we see, among
many others, Washington, Madi-
son, Franklin, Gouverneur Morris,
John Jay, Robert Morris, and that
other colossus of American states-
manship, Alexander Hamilton. But

[23]

LINCOLN

between these men and Lincoln
were many others conspicuous for
great services rendered to the same
great cause. John Marshall, of
Virginia, statesman and judge —
belonging in a degree to both pe-
riods — who for thirty-four years,
as head of the Federal judiciary,
read "between the lines" of the
Constitution, and found there the
"implied powers" by the exercise
of which Lincoln was at length able
to save the Union; Andrew Jack-
son, who laid low beneath the man-
date of his imperious will the first
outbreak against national sover-
eignty, arousing by his appeal to
the people of South Carolina a na-
tional enthusiasm which had not
yet spent itself when Lincoln de-

[24]

LINCOLN

livered his First Inaugural ; Henry
Clay, the greatest of parliamentary
leaders, who applied his rare pow-
ers to the healing expedient of com-
promise, thus relieving the strain
until the cement of the Union had
time to set and become firm; Daniel
Webster, the invincible defender
of the Constitution, who in debate
combined the strength of Goliath
and the skill of David, overwhelm-
ing the enemies of the Union with
torrents of logic and eloquence;
Thomas H. Benton, the sturdy and
truculent old patriot, himself rep-
resenting a slave State, whose
every heart-throb was true to the
nation he served — all these great
nationalists, and many others
equally devoted though perhaps

[25]

LINCOLN

less conspicuous, had consecrated
themselves to the maintenance of
the union of the States. But to
Abraham Lincoln, among them all,
it was given to act and suffer in the
fierce heat and light of terrific and
final conflict. From the cross of
national redemption whereon he
agonized, was at length borne away
forever the great sin of disunion,
which like a malignant spirit had
so long rent our fair land.

"D UT the field of Lincoln's states-
manship embraced more than
a mere constitutional doctrine. The
destruction of the Union as a polit-
ical end, without an ulterior object
in view, would, in 1861, have been
sheer madness, however doubtful

[26]

LINCOLN

the policy of its original formation
might have seemed to some of the
colonists. In 1860 the nation had
demonstrated its right to live, and
but for the slave interest the doc-
trine of State sovereignty would
have died with the generation that
wrote and adopted the ''Virginia
and Kentucky Resolutions." It
was because the Union had proved
less subservient to the slave inter-
est than was desired, that the
South, by a convenient application
of this doctrine of State rights,
sought to disrupt the Union and
set up a distinctive slave confed-
eracy. The constitutional question
and the slavery question were thus
thrown together into the crucible
of war.

[27]

I. I N C O L N

The Republicans, in 1860, had
no purpose to abolish slavery, nor
was it the then -avowed principles
of that party which slaveholders
feared. Far more ominous than the
platform of any political party was
the moral sentiment of the civilized
world which the South saw every-
where rising against her favorite
institution. The fact that ''Uncle
Tom's Cabin" found millions of
eager readers, both in Europe and
America, was to Southern states-
men far more disquieting than any
party declaration. Adverse public
opinion — that universal solvent of
modem democracy — threatened to
dissolve the very rock upon which
the industrial and social institu-
tions of the South had been built.

[28]

LINCOLN

The high falsetto which a few abo-
litionists were singing would have
excited only contempt in the South
but for the contagion which, in
spite of all Northern assurances,
was known to be in that cry. The
South knew abolition fire was fall-
ing upon tinder, not only all over
the North but all over the world;
and, morals aside, there was real
wisdom in the plan of forming a
new government, of which slavery
should be the corner stone. An in-
stitution like slavery must be the
corner stone or nothing.

Lincoln was not less opposed to
slavery on moral grounds than any
man in the nation, but when he de-
clared he had no constitutional
power, and therefore no purpose, to

[29]

LINCOLN

interfere with slavery in the South-
ern States, he was perfectly con-
scientious. When the War came
on, Lincoln ceased to speak of slav-
ery and spoke only of the Union.
He always seized upon the largest
fact. He knew, if the old abolition-
ists did not, that national preserva-
tion was the real stake in that con-
test. As Chief Executive he right-
ly disclaimed jurisdiction over slav-
ery in time of peace, but I think he
never doubted his right, as Com-
mander-in-chief of the Army and
Navy, to save the Union by any
means fitting and necessary to ac-
complish that end — even to the de-
struction of slavery by an execu-
tive proclamation.

The idea of emancipation seemed

[30]

LINCOLN

to grow upon Lincoln through the
early months of 1862, and by mid-
summer of that year his course was
determined. Starting out only to
preserve the Union, Lincoln, by
force of circumstances and through
the inexorable logic of events, be-
came the liberator of a race. He
was the most modest of men, and
distinctlj^ disclaimed any personal
credit for emancipation. He wrote,
in April, 1864, "I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plain-
ly that events have controlled me."
This was honest and it was true, for
in the stress of war, events, under
a popular government, must to a
large extent control everybody. In
the same letter, further discussing
the credit for emancipation, he rev-

[31]

LINCOLN

erently said, *'God alone can claim
it."

Exactly one month before the
preliminary Proclamation was is-
sued, Lincoln had written to Hor-
ace Greeley these ever-memorable
words :

" If there be those who would not save the
Union unless they could at the same time
save slavery, I do not agree with them. If
there be those who would not save the Union
unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My para-
mount object is to save the Union, and not
either to save or destroy slavery."

It argues nothing against Lin-
coln's sincerity that when he wrote
the words above quoted, the draft
of the great Proclamation was ly-
ing in his desk awaiting only a
Union victory to precede its issu-

[32]

LINCOLN

ance, in order that it might not
seem to the public to be a mere des-
perate expedient. Indeed, the stu-
dent of Lincoln's writings cannot
fail to see that at least as early as
March, 1862 — fully five months be-
fore he wrote this letter to Greeley
— Lincoln had come to the conclu-
sion that the War must in the end
be given a turn that would destroy
slavery, not merely to gratify his
personal wish in the matter, much
as he hated slavery, but because of
the inexorable logic of events.

On April 4, 1864, he wrote to A.
G. Hodges these words, "I aver
that, to this day, I have done no
official act in mere deference to my
abstract judgment and feeling on
slavery. ' '

[33]

LINCOLN

Lincoln was not an idealist. He
was not one of those moral egotists
who are wont to set their own scru-
ples of conscience above statutes.
By nature a conservative, he would
not resort to revolutionary meas-
ures imder guise of law. He was, in
fact, the highest example of a con-
stitutional ruler. When the hour
came that emancipation might fair-
ly be judged a military necessity,
and when the public opinion of the
loyal States was ready to accept it
as such, then, and not before, Lin-
coln meant to strike slavery down.
The time at length came, and Lin-
coln struck the blow which has re-
sounded many times round the
world; and thus what seems one of
the most radical measures of Amer-

[34]

LINCOLN

ican history came, in fact, from one
of the most conservative and cau-
tious minds which ever ruled in our
councils.

"DELIEVING firmly the time
would soon come when eman-
cipation must be proclaimed, Lin-
coln had long been earnestly — al-
most pathetically — urging the bor-
der States to themselves adopt
gradual emancipation and take
compensation for their slaves. He
procured the passage of an Act or
Resolution by Congress under
which they could have done this;
and, in a Proclamation upon the
subject, issued May 19, 1862, he elo-
quently said:

" To the people of these [border] States
I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue —

[35]

LINCOLN

I beseech you to make the argument for
yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be
blind to the signs of the times.
This proposal makes common cause for a
common object. ... It acts not the
Pharisee. ... So much good has not
been done by one effort in all past time as
in the providence of God it is now your high
privilege to do. May the vast future not
have to lament that you have neglected it."

Again, to the Senators and Rep-
resentatives of the border States,
in July, 1862, he addressed a letter,
in which, among other things, he
told them the War would soon de-
stroy slavery in their States "by
mere friction and abrasion." He
told them much of the value of
slave property was already gone,
and urged them to favor compen-
sated emancipation; and then, with
that terseness and force of which

[36]

LINCOLN

he was so great a master, he added,
*'How much better for you, as
seller, and the nation, as buyer, to
sell out and buy out that without
which the War never could have
been, than to sink both the thing
to be sold, and the price of it, in
cutting one another's throats."

It seems incredible, in the light
of events, that such appeals to the
good sense and the true interests
of the border States could have
fallen upon deaf ears, and the fact
that Lincoln's border State policy
was scoffed at alike by those it was
intended to benefit and by those
Northern idealists — such as Hor-
ace Greeley and Wendell Phillips,
who were always ready to burn
other people upon the pyre of their

[37]

LINCOLN

immolatirig goodness — only serves
to illustrate the deep intrenchment
of slavery in the popular interest
and prejudice. If Lincoln could,
in the Spring of 1862, have wrested
from all future sympathy with the
Rebellion, those slave States which
remained in the Union, by inducing
them to voluntarily adopt emanci-
pation, by that very act the great
game would have been won. Had
the one State of Kentucky heeded
Lincoln's appeal and voluntarily
abolished slavery, it would have
been a moral blow more decisive
than many military victories,
which would indeed have shaken
the Southern Confederacy to its
very foundations. Lincoln saw this
clearly, but his critics among the

[38]

LINCOLN

Northern radicals seemed utterly
incapable of appreciating his "bor-
der State policy." Greeley, about
this time, said in the Tribune^ that
when Lincoln prayed he said, "0
Lord, I would like to have You on
my side, but, 0 Lord, I just must
have Kentucky." Lincoln's great
anxiety that citizens of the loyal
slave States should receive pay for
their slaves gave rise to Ralph
Waldo Emerson's celebrated epi-
gram, —

" Pay the owner for the slave,
And fill the bag to the brim ;
Who is the owner? The slave is the owner
And ever was ; pay him ! "

Lincoln had always realized that
to check the spread of slavery was
a long step toward its abolition. In

[39]

LINCOLN

1858 he wisely said the country-
must ultimately become **all one
thing or all the other." The wise
men of the South clearly saw this
was true, and acted upon it. Had
slavery from the first been freely
admitted to all our new Territories,
it would soon have become na-
tional, and Robert Toombs might
have fulfilled a threat he is said to
have made, that he would some day
call the roll of his slaves at the foot
of Bunker Hill monument. On the
other hand, had slavery been strict-
ly confined to the area it occupied
prior to 1820, emancipation would
probably have come long before
this time, even had there been no
war.

[40]

LINCOLN

TN proclaiming freedom Lincoln
is commonly thought to have
reached the summit of his moral
grandeur. The act was certainly
great in itself, and equally great in
the manner of its accomplishment.
It was natural, however, that ad-
mirers of the great anti-slavery
agitators should dispute Lincoln's
title to the historic credit for eman-
cipation. Many thought Lincoln's
Proclamation lost its moral grand-
eur in the fact that it was issued
under the force of military neces-
sity, and thus became a mere inci-
dent in the preservation of the
Union. I must, however, dissent
from this view, and insist that
Abraham Lincoln's abolitionism
did not lose its ethical quality in its

[41]

LINCOLN

respect for established law and in
its well-tempered expediency. Any
fool could shout and say slavery
must be abolished, but it took a
statesman to find a way to abolish
it. The old abolitionists blew the
reckless clarion blast which
alarmed the Northern conscience
and precipitated the conflict. The
flashlight of their audacious and
consuming eloquence fell upon
slavery and revealed its enormity.
But the man who marshalled and
led the material and moral forces
which finally crushed the Rebellion
and destroyed slavery had need to
be something more than a reckless
agitator.

Prominent in our War period,
upon the Northern side, were many

[42]

LINCOLN

idealists, among whom some of the
old '^higher law" abolitionists were
the piu*est types. An idealist (to
depart somewhat from the lexi-
cons) is one who counts his chick-
ens before the eggs have been laid.
He is lacking in a sense of the pro-
portion and relation of things, and
takes himself so seriously that he
loses the power of seeing the actual
situation. In the last analysis he
lacks humor. In the rapturous con-
templation of the end he forgets all
about means. The Northern ideal-
ists, or radicals, thought that if
Lincoln would only sound a great
blast upon a ram's horn all the
walls of the Jericho of Rebellion
would fall flat. Acknowledging no
responsibility, these men could talk

[43]

LINCOLN

much nonsense without having to
account for the folly of their
speech.

Lincoln, however, was President,
and as such he felt gravely respon-
sible to the country for his every
act and word. He did not fly
through the air with the theorists,
but walked slowly and painfully
upon the ground — and rough, in-
deed, was his footing. He walked
among the *' plain people," and
communed with them day by day;
and as he walked he took note of
all the rocks and chasms and quag-
mires which lay in his pathway —
little matters, for which the mere
theorists felt only contempt.

The truth is, the old abolitionists
had so long combated a majority

[44]

LINCOLN

upon the slavery issue that they
could not appreciate the wisdom of
a President who waited for the con-
currence of a majority before act-
ing. To Wendell Phillips the agi-
tator, delivering a philippic against
slavery, the approval of a majority
was not necessary. His tempera-
ment was such that the violent
opposition of numbers acted upon
him as a stimulant. But to Lincoln
the President, formulating and en-
forcing practical measures of gov-
ernment for a sovereign people, the
moral support of public opinion
was an absolute necessity. Those
who, almost before Lincoln's right
hand was lowered, insisted that he
should abandon the Constitution he
had sworn to support, and resort

[45]

LINCOLN

to that vague delusion called the
"higher law" — without any then
apparent military necessity — had
little appreciation of the man or
the occasion. In the days of war
most of these men went their own
T\dld, unreasoning way, and heaped
obloquy upon the man who was
completing their work in the only
possible way it could then have
been completed.

The distinct issue on which Lin-
coln won the presidency was the
prevention of the spread of slavery
— not its abolition — and on that
issue he received less than one-half
of the popular vote, excluding from
the calculation the votes of the
States that afterwards seceded.
However great may be the wonder

[46]

J. I N C O L. N

of it in the light of events, the fact
is that a large majority of the
whole American people stood, in
1861, against Lincoln's moderate
personal views on the slavery ques-
tion. Out of twenty-three Chris-
tian ministers residing in Spring-
field, Illinois, in 1860, twenty were
opposed to the election of Lincoln.*
A quarrel between two factions of
the Democratic party as to the par-
ticular degree of legal encourage-
ment slavery should receive in its
struggle for territory and suprem-
acy had resulted in Lincoln's elec-
tion. No wonder he refused to at

* This statement is based on the language of
Lincoln himself, as Hon. Newton Bateman, then
Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois,
reported to Dr. J. G. Holland. — Holland 's ' ' Life
of Lincoln," page 236.

[47]

LINCOLN

once launch an emancipation policy
when even his own moderate prin-
ciple of slavery- restriction could
scarcely be sustained.

Lincoln was acquainted, perhaps
better than any other public man,
with that prejudice which in those
days often led even good Union
men, in the Western States, to de-
clare they would not support an
"abolition war." He knew many
good friends of the Union believed
that emancipation would be fol-
lowed by a horrible war of races, or
by a still more horrible amalgama-
tion of whites and blacks. To such
he held out his zealous but imprac-
ticable scheme of colonizing the
negroes in South America or
Africa. It was exactly because Lin-

[48]

LINCOLN

coin's early associations had so
thoroughly familiarized him with
the prejudice which used to fairly
shudder at sound of the then -cur-
rent phrase "nigger equality" —
nay, because he even partook in a
degree of that prejudice himself —
that he proved the fittest man to
stand at the helm.

Lincoln thrust forward the
Union issue because he knew there
Avere at least twenty men in the
North for the Union where there
was one for emancipation. The
boast, early made, that a united
South would be hurled against a
divided North, was, upon the slav-
ery question, fully realized. Lin-
coln's party was distinctly pledged
not to disturb slavery in the States

[49]

LINCOLN

where it existed, and the pro-slav-
ery Unionist was as vehement in
urging the sanctity of this promise
as the Eastern radical was in de-
claring that treason had put slav-
ery beyond constitutional protec-
tion.

When the Emancipation Procla-
mation was at length issued it was
bitterly assailed as a revolutionary
subversion of the Constitution, and
yet it is a remarkable fact, that
none of his critics ever stated the
legal case against emancipation so
strongly or so well as Lincoln once
stated it himself. To 0. H. Brown-
ing, who scolded him for revoking
Fremont 's Emancipation Procla-
mation, on September 22, 1861, he
wrote :

[50]

LINCOLN

"If the general needs them [the slaves]
he can seize them and use them, but when
the need is past it is not for him to fix their
permanent future condition. That must be
settled according to the laws made by law-
makers, and not by military proclamations.
The proclamation on the point in question is
simply dictatorship. It assumes that the
general may do anything he pleases : con-
fiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal
people as well as of disloyal ones. And going
the whole figure, I have no doubt, would be
more popular with some thoughtless people
than that which has been done. But I can-
not assume this reckless position nor allow
others to assume it on my responsibility.
You speak of it as being the only means
of saving the government. On the contrary,
■ it is, itself, a surrender of the government.
Can it be pretended that it is any longer the
government of the United States — any gov-
ernment of Constitution and laws — wherein
a general or President may make permanent
rules of property by proclamation? . . .
What I object to is, that I, as President,
shall expressly or impliedly seize and exercise
the permanent legislative functions of the
government."

[51]

LINCOLN

This whole letter to Browning is
most interesting in a study of the
development of the emancipation
policy, and should be compared
with his Proclamation annulling
the emancipation edict of Gen.
Hunter, eight months later, May
19, 1862. In the latter he says;

"Whether it be competent for me, as
Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy,
to declare the slaves of any State or States
free, and whether at any time, in any case,
it shall have become a necessity indispensable
to the maintenance of the government to
exercise such supposed power, are questions
which, under my responsibility, I reserve to
myself and which I cannot feel justified in
leaving to the decision of commanders in the
field."

Here was a distinct advance upon
the position announced in the
Browning letter. He had found

[52]

LINCOLN

the true basis for his emancipation
policy, and only awaited the devel-
opment of public opinion and the
march of events.

T INCOLN had the sense to keep
his eye upon great facts and
to reckon with large causes. He
was sagacious enough to perceive
that the supreme issue of the strug-
gle was national preservation, and
that this issue embraced the slav-
ery question and all others. Gree-
ley's silly advice to let the South-
ern States **go in peace," and "Wen-
dell Phillips' still more pictur-
esque folly that we would ^* build a
bridge of gold and pay their toll
over it," could meet no favor in a
mind so sane as Lincoln's. He

[53]

LINCOLN

knew if the government proved
strong enough to cope with the Re-
bellion it w^ould, in the end, prove
strong enough to deal with slavery
and ultimately abolish it by peace-
ful means. He said in his Peoria
speech, in 1854, ''Much as I hate
slavery, I would consent to the ex-
tension of it rather than see the
Union dissolved, just as I would
consent to any great evil to avoid a
greater one. ' ' From this sentiment
he never receded.

Had the Southern people ac-
quiesced in Lincoln's election and
in the supremacy of his doctrines
they would certainly have pro-
longed slavery, and in the end, per-
haps, have insured a liberal com-
pensation for their slaves. But

[54]

LINCOLN

ultimately either slavery or the
Union had to go down.

T HAVE sometimes thought that
Lincoln, with prophetic eye,
saw the destruction of slavery from
the very beginning, but with a pa-
tience and self-control which find
no parallel awaited the slow turn-
ing of the mills of the gods. He had
the large sense to perceive that the
spirit of the times would in the end
abolish slavery, and that to force
the issue would only insure the suc-
cess of the Confederacy. He rec-
ognized a plan higher than human
plans. He knew when he wrote
the Greeley letter that the march
of events had put it past human
power to save slavery with the

[55]

LINCOLN

Union. He felt that a hand might-
ier than his own was writing the
doom of slavery upon the fiery war-
cloud, and so believing, and so
praying, too, he patiently accepted
criticism, and even calumny — first
from the extreme abolitionists and
afterwards from the pro-slavery
Unionists. He knew a premature
expression, officially, of his belief
that the War was destined to de-
stroy slavery would probably take
from the Union army a hundred
thousand bayonets, and that this
might turn the tide against the
Union. Had the border slave
States been repelled by the least
rudeness of treatment from the ad-
ministration, the Union would
probably never have been saved.

[56]

LINCOLN

Lincoln himself put the case tersely
when he said of the border States,
"With them against us, the job is
too big for us." Realizing that
public opinion was the only effect-
ive abolitionist, Lincoln stayed his
pen, and allowed the Union volun-
teers to write with their bayonets,
in the blood of angry battles, the
real proclamation of freedom. He
knew well that a proclamation so
written would never need to be
recanted.

T N the Spring of 1861 there were
many persons in the North who
saw in Lincoln only a well-mean-
ing, shrewd, but inexperienced per-
son, whose redeeming trait, they
hoped, would prove to be docility.

[57]

LINCOLN

Each of these persons felt sure
Lincoln would need much sage ad-
vice, and expected to supply it,
and even to largely control his
administration. These self-ap-
pointed guardians were unprepared
to receive a national saviour from
the Nazareth of the prairies. They
at once began telling Lincoln what
to do, and it has been aptly said
he received worse advice, and more
of it, than any statesman that ever
lived.

This will not seem wonderful
when we remember how utterly
the sudden rending of the Union
had dazed the American people.
In the confusion of that awful crisis
even wise men said and did silly
things. William H. Seward — cer-

[58]

LINCOLN

tainly a wise statesman , under
ordinary conditions — in the face
of threatened civil war lost both
heart and judgment, and gave Lin-
coln some very bad and startling
advice. Chase marred his other-
wise splendid record with queru-
lous carpings, all through the War,
against a chief he did not in any
degree understand and whose su-
perior he felt he was.

That Lincoln, inexperienced as
he was, ''kept his head" through
the panic of timidity, distrust, and
hysteria which marked the early
months of his administration, gent-
ly but firmly resisting the bad
advice which came to him from so
many high sources, is one of the
ptrongest proofs of the firm texture

[59]

LINCOLN

of his mind. To keep on good
terms with advisers of assumed su-
periority and at the same time not
take their advice, requires great
shrewdness and tact, and no states-
man ever knew better how to do
this than Lincoln. He was too
great to stand for a moment upon
mere pride of opinion. He was al-
ways ready to hear advice, but his
ultimate monitor was within. He
said, "It is my duty to hear all, but
at last I must, within my sphere,
judge what to do and what to for-
bear." This self-reliance, in prac-
tice, gave mortal offense to many
prominent Republicans, who could
never bring themselves to admit
that the basis of it was real su-
periority, and not arrogance.

[60]

LINCOLN

Lincoln was ruling a democracy,
and to rule a real democracy in-
volves problems never thought of
by such rulers as Caesar, Cromwell,
and Napoleon. He had a great
military problem, and this was
complicated with a still more per-
plexing political problem, to say
nothing of the other problems that
were presented by our foreign re-
lations. An early blow at slavery,
it was thought, would assist us
with foreign countries, but Lin-
coln knew such a move would set
our domestic politics awry. His
first wise thought was to keep the
peace among all the adherents of
the LTnion, and the wise desire to
do this furnishes the key to his
whole policy. He recognized no

[61]

LINCOLN

line of political cleavage save that
between the loyal and the disloyal.
He often spoke of '* balancing mat-
ters," and no man ever knew bet-
ter than he how to strike the pru-
dent average.

If any man in this world ever
understood that capricious thing
called "public opinion" that man
was Abraham Lincoln. He watch-
ed the cmTent of public thought
and prejudice as intently as a cau-
tious pilot watches the face of a
river for evidence of bars and
snags. It has been well said that
he possessed a wonderful sixth
sense for the feeling of the average
American. He caught the faintest
sound which presaged a storm of
popular passion, and the sagacity

[62]

LINCOLN

and skill with which he avoided
the numberless eddies and whirl-
pools of the slavery question, while
steering on to the great end of na-
tional preservation, have, in my
judgment, never been equalled in
the field of statesmanship. Lin-
coln's exquisite sense of humor
played an important part in saving
the Union. It kept him from doing
foolish things. He told a delega-
tion of Chicago ministers who came
to inform him that it was ''God's
will" that he should at once launch
an emancipation proclamation, that
such a measure would be like the
Pope's Bull against the Comet, be-
cause it would have no force be-
yond the military lines, and it
would remain to enforce it by put-

[63]

LINCOLN

ting down the Rebellion just as he
was striving to do. He thus antici-
pated the very criticism that was,
in fact, made in the English news-
papers when the Proclamation was
issued: namely, that the President
had assmned to abolish slavery
everywhere except in the territory
w^here he could have abolished it,
and had let it alone in the territory
subject to his jurisdiction.

The great Proclamation was
wisely withheld until the extreme
anti-slavery element in New Eng-
land was ready to break from the
vanguard of the Union column, and
thus it came late enough in the evo-
lution of public opinion barely to
save to the cause the still more im-
portant rear- guard in the border
and Western States.

[64]

LINCOLN

^HUS we see that it was a main
feature of Lincoln's states-
manship that he distinctly compre-
hended his problem; and not only
his one great problem, but all its
minor related problems. Such was
the clearness of his vision, such
the breadth of his views, such the
grasp and sanity of his judgment,
that within his policy all things
found their proper place and rela-
tion, and all the din and smoke of
terrific conflict could not confuse
him or put him from his purpose.
To use an illustration of his own
kind, he never went snipe-shooting
when there were bear in sight.

Lincoln succeeded in holding the
border slave States in line upon the
paramount Union issue even while

[65]

LINCOLN

the institution of slavery, which
they wished to save, was being
trampled to death beneath the feet
of the Union army. He played the
eager Union sentiment of the West
against the institution of slavery,
which had caused the War, until
the West finally came to agree with
New England that slavery must be
struck down. In other words, Lin-
coln bridged with his policy the
vast stretch of opinion which lay
between the rabid abolitionism of
the East and the pro-slavery
Unionism of the Western and bor-
der States, and thus he was at last
able to hurl the whole force of
Union sentiment on this side of the
battle line against the armies of
the Confederacy.

[66^

LINCOLN

A task so complex called for a
statesman of broad views, great
self -poise, iron endurance, and sub-
lime courage — courage to act, and,
even in a greater degree, courage
to forbear. Struggling, like Lao-
coon, in the serpent-coils of the
slavery complication, stung by the
wasps of incontinent radicalism,
hectored by swarms of Northern
men who set the letter of the Con-
stitution above the nation's life,
Lincoln yet had the monumental
patience and foresight nearly al-
ways to do and say the wise thing.
^^The occasion is piled high with
difficulty," said he, **and we must
rise with the occasion."

[67]

LINCOLN

T INCOLN'S search for a gen-
eral was long and painful and
at first quite as fruitless as that of
Diogenes for an honest man — and
he carried a better lantern, too. A
few military victories would have
cleared the atmosphere, but when
Lincoln asked his generals for vic-
tories they tried to swap jobs with
him, and gave him advice on the
slavery question. McClellan, just
after fleeing in panic from the
Chickahominy with a magnificent
army, which under another com-
mander might have bivouacked in
the Confederate capital, found time
to write Lincoln a lengthy letter of
general advice, in which, among
many other impertinences, he said
' ' the abolition of slavery must not
be thought of."

[68]

LINCOLN

On the other hand, two or three
of the lesser generals in the field,
who, it must be said, were not par-
ticularly formidable to the com-
mon enemy, sought the cheap ap-
plause of the unthinking by issu-
ing proclamations of emancipation
in their military districts, thus
adding to the embarrassments of
the one great, patient man who
saw all the phases of the Union
problem.

T T is quite the fashion to say that
previous to 1860 Lincoln had
not shown the qualities of politi-
cal leadership, and that his nomi-
nation for President was merely a
happy accident of politics. Pro-
fessor Von Hoist, in his "Consti-

[69]

LINCOLN

tutional History of the United
States,'' lias refuted this error.
Lincoln's nomination was no acci-
dental honor, won by superior man-
agement over the real leaders of
the party. In the great revolt of
1854 against the conspiracy to
open up new territory to slavery,
though less officially conspicuous
than Seward, Lincoln soon proved
himself the most sagacious leader
of the new party. Lincoln's action
in one conspicuous party crisis re-
futes, once for all, the notion that
he drifted helplessly with the tide
and was not a party leader.

When Senator Douglas, at the
Winter session of 1857-8, broke
with President Buchanan, and
made his brilliant fight in the

[70]

LINCOLN

Senate against the admission of
Kansas as a slave State under the
fraudulent Lecompton Constitu-
tion, many prominent anti- slavery
men were dazzled by the political
pyrotechnics of the ** Little Giant."
Douglas actually hypnotized some
of his former antagonists into the
belief that he was fighting their
battles for them. Horace Greeley
accepted him as a new Moses, and
advised the Illinois Republicans to
support him for reelection to the
Senate. Seward prudently said
nothing publicly, but he was well
known to be ready to acquiesce in
the leadership of Douglas and in
his reelection. He, indeed, made a
speech in the Senate virtually
waiving the vital Republican prin-

[71]

LINCOLN

ciple, "No more slave territory."
Politics never made stranger bed-
fellows than when the "Free-
soilers" of New England were
found sympathizing with Douglas
in his contest for reelection.

It was Lincoln who saw clearly
that for the Republicans to sup-
port Douglas for the Senate would
be a practical surrender upon the
slavery question. He declared that
the issue was deeper than "the
mere question of fact" whether or
not a particular Constitution for
Kansas had been legally adopted
by the voters. He showed the Re-
publicans that the man who had
repeatedly declared he did not care
"whether slavery was voted down
or voted up" in Kansas, just so the

[72]

LINCOLN

vote was fair, could not be safely
entrusted with the ark of the Re-
publican covenant; and when
Douglas returned to Illinois in tri-
umph to receive the plaudits of his
admirers, Lincoln promptly chal-
lenged him to mortal political
combat.

In the great debate which fol-
lowed, Lincoln exhumed from out
the clap-trap and rubbish in which
sophistry sought to envelop it, the
essential moral question of that
great controversy. In his speech
at Springfield, June 16, 1858 — the
greatest political speech ever de-
livered in this country — he boldly
proclaimed the startling truth that
we had come to the crisis where
the country must choose, once for

[73]

LINCOLN

all, between freedom and slavery
as a permanent national policy, or
else see the "divided house" topple
down. This was more than four
months before Seward proclaimed
the "irrepressible conflict" in his
Rochester speech. The master
feats by which the "Little Giant"
hoped to save his popularity in the
North, without quite ruining his
political prospects in the South,
came to a speedy end before the
keen and searching logic of his
antagonist.

When Lincoln was defeated for
the Senate, as his friends warned
him would be the case upon so radi-
cal a platform as he had made for
himself, he accepted the result with
the complacency of a true philoso-

[74]

LINCOLN

pher. He knew that while he had
lost his battle he had not lost his
principles. Nay, he knew he had
laid the foundations of ultimate
success for the cause of freedom.
He had done more than this; he
had proved himself the most saga-
cious and fearless leader of the new
party, by true merit and service
raised to that great eminence.

Equally absurd is it, in my judg-
ment, to say that after this great
debate with Douglas, in 1858, Lin-
coln was an ' * unknown man. ' ' His
antagonist was the most noted man
in the politics of that day. It was
not without reason that he was
called a *' giant," for a giant, in-
deed, he was in point of political
shrewdness, force, and audacity.

[75]

LINCOLN

The newspapers took note of every
move of the great Illinois Senator,
and Lincoln's temerity in challeng-
ing him excited wonder. The de-
bate was, of course, followed in-
tently by every man who paid any
attention whatever to political af-
fairs. However obscure Lincoln
may previously have been, his con-
flict with Douglas brought him into
the very focus of public attention.
Lincoln's great plainness and
simplicity of speech and argument
won upon all who heard or read
what he said. He never talked
''over the heads" of his hearers.
His were the argmnents against
slavery which found lodgment in
the minds and hearts of the com-
mon people. His speech at Peoria,

[76]

LINCOLN

October 16, 1854; his speech at
Springfield, June 16, 1858; his de-
bates with Douglas, and his speech
at Cooper Institute, New York,
February 27, 1860, are easily the
masterpieces of all the anti-slavery
literature preceding the War. In
them are the body and the blood of
the republicanism of that day. In
them Lincoln made the platform
whereon he won the battle for
slavery - restriction. *

Furthermore, Lincoln was not,
at any period of his career, of that
easy-going temper which runs with

* I do not include the celebrated ' ' lost speech ' '
delivered by Lincoln at the Bloomington Conven-
tion, May 29, 1856, because, while we know that
speech greatly moved his auditors, we do not know
what he said. I have never believed Whitney's
alleged reproduction of that speech to be genuine.

[77]

LINCOLN

the tide. While he was President
some thought he drifted aimlessly,
but in fact he sailed the ship. His
strong hand was always upon the
helm, but he had sense enough to
know that the ship could not be
sailed against wind and tide.
When he met baffling weather he
knew how to tack. He could even
seek a temporary haven and wait
for fair winds, but he never turned
back or abandoned the journey.
He knew there was time for all
things, and he never acted under
the influence of panic. He bided
his time, and with a patience as
deep as nature, as unfailing as des-
tiny, he awaited events.

[78]

LINCOLN

'T^HE most conspicuous personal
quality of Lincoln, as I see
Mm, is manly strength — a self-
confidence, heroic but unexpressed.
To me, Lincoln seems on great oc-
casions a solitary man, communing
with himself — never, indeed, arro-
gant; not by any means always see-
ing his way through to the end, but
believing, with much confidence,
that he saw as far as any, and yet
prudently concealing, in large de-
gree, the confidence he felt in the
correctness of his own views. I am
aware few took this view of Lin-
coln in his lifetime. The extreme
good-fellowship of his lighter hours
seems to disprove it; and so many
incidents are current showing his
tenderness of heart — such as his

[79]

LINCOLN

strangely intense and emotional
letters to Joshua Speed, and the
alacrity with which he is said to
have pardoned condemned soldiers
against the protests of his gener-
als— that the world is in danger
of concluding that Lincoln's chief
side was his emotional side and
that there was in him no iron.

That he was gentle, merciful,
kind, and tolerant, that he was
above petty resentments, and al-
ways ready to cover the faults of
his fellows with the mantle of
charity, no one will deny. But
these qualities were not incom-
patible with strength of character.
To be firm and enforce one's pur-
pose it is not necessary to be a
tyrant, and what seemed weakness

[80]

LINCOLN

in some of Lincoln's public acts was
often the result of prudence and
sound judgment. For instance, I
doubt whether Lincoln ever set
aside a death sentence when it was
not good policy to do it. We have,
I hope, gotten far past the barbar-
ism of shooting a soldier boy to
death for sleeping at his post, and
Lincoln had too much sense to ap-
prove such a sentence though his
heart had been harder than stone.
Convictions for offences which in-
volved a betrayal of the cause, or
those evincing great moral turpi-
tude, he could approve without a
qualm, and he did approve many
sentences — the conviction of Fitz
John Porter being the most con-
spicuous.

[81]

LINCOLN

T NOW go a step further, and say
that Lincoln was a great ruler
of men; and the man who has
learned to rule others must have
begun by learning to rule himself.
Lincoln, contrary to current belief,
was capable of great, righteous
wrath, and sometimes of terrific
anger, but his wonderful self-con-
trol ordinarily enabled him to con-
ceal the storms of passion that
must often have rent his soul
throughout the trying days of the
War. He never blustered; his
method of ruling was not so crude.
Nor was he one of Gratiano's men,
whose visages —

"Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a willful stillness entertain
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle. ' "

[82]

LINCOLN

On the contrary, Lincoln was al-
ways simple, natural — almost boy-
ish. He disdained all owlish shows
of superior wisdom. He was per-
fectly willing that the men he ruled
should believe they were ruling
him. He did not fear that some
upstart would cheat history and
wear his laurels. Referring to the
capital way in which he got along
with Senator Sumner, he said, with
a sly twinkle in his eye, "He thinks
he manages me." I think Lincoln
knew that he was building for eter-
nity, but with a serene confidence
he committed to time the keeping
of his matchless fame. Secretary
Stanton, according to one account,
raised his hand above the Presi-
dent 's body a moment after he had

[83]

LINCOLN

breathed his last, and said, "There
lies the greatest ruler of men that
has ever lived." Great testimony
is this, coming from Stanton.

A VERY great man is elemental.
He is, so to speak, a grand di-
vision of nature. We now see that
Lincoln's purpose and policy
moved through the War with all
the steadiness and certainty of a
cosmic force. His patience under
vast discouragements assumes the
character of the patience of nature
itself. His spirit was never ruffled
by enmity or elated by vanity.
When a little man is permitted to
step suddenly from a puncheon
floor to velvet he is apt to become
giddy. The political "beggar-on-

[84]

LINCOLN

horseback," often met with under
a popular government, generally
thinks, with Jack Cade, that all the
sewers are going to run red with
claret because he is *'king."
Though coming from a lowly es-
tate, Lincoln seemed unconscious
of his position as the first man of
the nation. True to the class which
produced him, he left no degrading
apology for his breeding or the
meagreness of his early conditions.
His manliness was in his blood, and
we now see that there was never
taken to the White House a truer
dignity of character, a more firmly-
poised intellect, or a more intelli-
gent self-reliance, than went there
from the prairies of Illinois with
Abraham Lincoln.

[85]

LINCOLN

'l^T'E have seen that Lincoln
stands in American history
first for national unity. We have
seen that he stands also for liberty
and the rights of man in subordi-
nation to established law. We have
seen him, strong as the ''unwedge-
able and knarled oak," bending
others to his purpose. We have
also seen him exercising a wisdom
and tact rarely found among the
endowments of man. To all this I
now add that he was the greatest
popular leader that has appeared
in our country. Out of the jungles
of practical politics have grown but
few oaks of statesmanship, but
Lincoln w^as one of these oaks; and
it is proper, I think, to call him a
practical politician in the highest

[86]

LINCOLN

and best sense of that term. In
this field, with the sole exception
of Thomas Jefferson, he finds in
our history no rival. He was pre-
eminently the ^'man of the people"
— not the demagogue who used the
people for his purpose, but the
statesman who served them and
whom they recognized as their
own. He led the people for the
people's good, and not for his
own personal aggrandizement. In
Abraham Lincoln the spirit of de-
mocracy was incarnate. What he
called ''the plain people" loved
him in life and have canonized him
in death, for it is only the common
people who can confer enduring
fame.

So complete was Lincoln's belief

[87]

LINCOLN

in the intelligence and honesty
of the American people that he
never found it expedient to flatter
them, but gave them always his
honest thoughts. He did not reach
the people secondarily, through the
medium of local politicians, as is
now too much the fashion, but
established his political relations
directly with every citizen of the
Eepublic. He had no use for the
political ''machine" of later days.
The standard of Lincoln's judg-
ment and feeling was level with
every condition of American life.
His communion with the masses
was no condescending patronage
but a genuine fellowship. He was
at home everywhere; he perfectly
understood ignorance and preju-

[88]

LINCOLN

dice; he had charity for them, but
he never played the demagogue by
appealing to them. The coarse-
ness of the vulgar and ignorant did
not shock him as it does many good
men who have not had Lincoln's
experience. The truth is that the
life of this wonderful man meas-
ures the whole vast distance be-
tween the top and the bottom lay-
ers of American society. He grew
through all the strata, and at last
flowered and bore fruit at the top.
It has been well said that he lived
all there was of American life, felt
all there was of American experi-
ence, and therefore in his character
and life and work he fairly repre-
sented and expressed the American
people.

[89]

LINCOLN

T INCOLN was great enough to
sink himself completely in his
cause. The fact that Stanton had
once treated him with professional
discourtesy and had then lately
criticised him in his own bitter
fashion, was to Lincoln's mind no
reason why Stanton should not be
made Secretary of War, when it
was deemed that his appointment
would most aid the cause. It was
the country Lincoln wanted served,
not himself. The friends of Chase
were surprised to learn, in that
eminent man's appointment as
Chief Justice, that his resignation
of the Treasury, though petulant
and ill-judged, had left no iron in
the soul of the great President. It
is now known that Lincoln said,

[90]

LINCOLN

with the resignation of Chase still
in his hands unaccepted, that Chase
should be Chief Justice if a vacan-
cy arose.*

A little earlier, when, through
the publication of the "Pomeroy
Circular," the fact came to light
that Chase was scheming against
his chief for the presidential nomi-
nation in 1864, and Chase, in some
confusion at the disclosure, offered
his resignation, Lincoln wrote him
these most wonderful words,
"Whether you shall remain at the
head of the Treasury department
is a question which I will not per-
mit myself to consider from any
standpoint other than my judg-

* Chittenden 's ' ' Eecolleetions of Lincoln and
his Administration," page 380.

[91]

LINCOLN

ment of the public service, and in
that view I do not perceive occa-
sion for a change." Certainly this
was not the letter of a mere poli-
tician.

Only a President of great
breadth could have written to
Grant after the fall of Vicksburg,
"I now wish to make a personal
acknowledgment that you were
right and I was wrong"; and it was
Lincoln alone who, in the face of
much bitter detraction, saved Gen-
eral Grant to the cause and gave
him the opportunity to finally
crush the rebellion. He expressed
the matter tersely, **I can't spare
that man; he fights."

liincoln's magnanimous treat-
ment of Seward after that gentle-

[92]

LINCOLN

man had suggested Lincoln's prac-
tical abdication in his favor, is now
well known; and a still better illus-
tration of the same spirit has come
to light since the voluminous bi-
ography by Nicolay and Hay was
published. Just after the battle
of Gettysburg, Lincoln thought
that prompt pursuit and battle by
Meade would destroy Lee's army
before it could re-cross the swollen
Potomac. Meade's delay and fail-
ure to seize his great opportunity
deeply grieved and annoyed the
President, who finally sent a per-
emptory order to forthwith attack
Lee — which order was accompa-
nied by perhaps the most remark-
able note ever sent by a com-
mander to his subordinate. It ran

[93]

LINCOLN

substantially thus : ' ' This order is
not of record. If you are success-
ful you may destroy it, together
with this note; if you fail, publish
the order, and I will take the
responsibility/'*

But why recount such minor in-
cidents to prove Lincoln 's unselfish

* An autograph letter of the late James Har-
lan, of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, once Secretary of the
Interior under Lincoln, written to the author, April
17, 1897, ia conclusive authority for the statement
in the text. He writes: " The President sent
an order, privately, directing Gen. Meade to fol-
low up his victory by an immediate attack on
Lee's retreating army, and thus, if possible, pre-
vent the re-crossing of the Potomac by the Con-
federate forces, accompanied by a confidential
letter authorizing him to make the order public in
case of disaster and in case of success to destroy
both the order and confidential letter. This much
you may rely upon as historically true. Whether
or not these papers ever reached Gen. Meade I
am not able to say. I had supposed, prior to the
receipt of your letter, that this incident had re-
mained unknown for twenty years after the close
of the War of the Kebellion to everybody except
Gen. Meade, Eobert T. Lincoln, and myself."

[94]

LINCOLN

spirit, when it is well known he
refused to take to himself the least
credit for the act of emancipation'?
He knew that the entire colored
race, those living and those yet to
come, grateful for the boon of free-
dom at his hands, were ready to
place his name among the immor-
tals. He knew that the civilized
world stood ready with a laurel
crown for the emancipator of a
race, and yet he could put that
crown aside and say, *'I have not
controlled events ; events have con-
trolled me; God alone can claim it."

T INCOLN had read in all chari-
ty the secrets of the wonderful
book of human nature, and had
there learned to allow for the short-

[95]

LINCOLN

coinings of even enemies. He had
too much breadth for bitterness.
Passion never blew out the lamp of
his reason, and from no lips ever
came more gracefully the soft an-
swer which turneth away wrath.
He had the charity to say, "The
Southern people are just what we
should be in their situation."
Though this man of mercy and
gentleness was called by destiny
to conduct a gigantic and cruel
civil war; though he stood for years
at the very storm-centre of an era
of passion and hate ; though all the
pent-up fury and rage of fifty years
of bitter contention beat upon him,
he left behind not a single bitter
memory, and malice itself was
disarmed before his great heart

[96]

LINCOLN

was cold. His utterances will be
searched in vain for one harsh
word against any of the Southern
people, and it is as appropriate as
it is touching that Confederate
soldiers now come forward as his
most eloquent and appreciative
eulogists.

T INCOLN was not schooled or
learned, but he was educated.
He had endured all the agonies of
complete mental discipline. The
process of his education never
ceased, but he spent no time learn-
ing the wrong things. His mind
was not clogged with useless lum-
ber. His knowledge was all corre-
lated, and his intellectual weapons
were as keen as blades of Damas-

[97]

LINCOLN

cus. His facts were not numerous,
but they were always ready for use.
He had read men more than books,
and it was with men — not books —
he had to deal. He studied other
men and he also studied himself.
He cross-examined his own soul.
His growth was evolution rather
than acquisition. Botanists tell of
a class of plants called the ''exoge-
nous," which grow by taking on
layers from the outside, and of
another class called the "endoge-
nous," which grow from within —
from the heart. Lincoln, like the
endogenous plant, grew from with-
in. He expanded by the action of
subjective moral and intellectual
forces. His mind literally ' ' worked
itself clear." In all classifications

[98]

LINCOLN

of humankind Lincoln will stand
as an individual, akin to all classes
but belonging exclusively to none.

Lincoln had the best of legal
minds, but fortunately he never de-
generated into what Seward called
a ' ' mere lawyer. ' ' He took the ker-
nel and rejected the husk. Those
who would appreciate his great
grasp of constitutional questions
must read his State papers and his
letters wherein he discusses the
war-power of the Executive over
slavery and over the right of habeas
corpus.'^

This man had no extensive ac-
quaintance with general literature.
He told the artist Carpenter, who

* It will pay well also to read Frederick Tre-
vor Hill's book, " Lincoln the Lawyer," which
was published since this paper was written.

[99]

LINCOLN

spent six months at the White
House painting the Emancipation
Group, that he never read a novel
clear through. Scott, Thackeray,
and Hawthorne wrote all their nov-
els within the limits of Lincoln's
lifetime, and in the same period
Dickens wrote all but two of his;
yet Lincoln appears to have known
no more of these authors than he
did of ^schylus or Homer.

To a mind like Lincoln's, that
which has actually happened in
this world is far more interesting
and far more dramatic than the
mere dreams of fiction. In poetry
he is known to have read Burns
and Byron, and Shakespeare in
part, and of the plays that he read
he judged that ''Macbeth" was

[100]

LINCOLN

greatest. Mournful verses seemed
to strike a chord in his heart, and
he was not over -critical as to liter-
ary quality. He had read and
studied the Bible in the translation
of King James, and the influence
of its pure and simple style is
everywhere apparent in what he
wrote. Doubtless Lincoln knew,
in outline at least, the history of
other countries besides his own,
but evidence of the fact is not pre-
served in his writings.

T N all the writings of Lincoln
there are not to be found more
than two or three allusions to the
classic myths, nor did he often,
if at all, point a moral by refer-
ence to the history of Greece or

[101]

LINCOLN

Rome. In an early sophomoric
production he barely mentioned
the names of Caesar and Alexan-
der. Once in a letter he referred
to Procrustes and his fabled bed-
stead, and sometimes he jocu-
larly spoke of Stanton, his Sec-
retary of War, as "Mars." Be-
tween his nomination and election
he read Plutarch's "Lives," in or-
der to justify a statement made by
Scripps in a campaign biography.
If he ever read the rich mythology
of Greece and Rome it made little
impression upon him. Mercury,
with winged feet, seems to have
brought him no message from the
gods of old. He heard not the
thunders of Jove, the sobs of Niobe,
nor the entrancing strains of Or-

[102]

LINCOLN

pheus' harp; and yet this man,
unschooled and unlearned, grasped
and solved the political problem of
his country and his time. Joseph
Jefferson, the actor, in his ** Auto-
biography" (page 30) makes Lin-
coln, in what he terms a ** har-
angue" to the City Council of
Springfield, Illinois, made in 1839,
*' trace the history of the drama
from the time when Thespis acted
in a cart, to the stage of to-day."
Those who have studied the style
of Lincoln and know the range of
his illustrations will be somewhat
surprised to know that, in 1839, he
took Athens, B. C. 600, as his start-
ing point in persuading the city
fathers of an obscure western town
to repeal an unjust tax against

[103]

LINCOLN

players ! Mr. Jefferson probably in-
troduced Thespis into this account
through some substitution of the
memory. Jefferson seems not to
have known that Lincoln was him-
self at the time in question (1839)
a member of the Board of Trustees
of the old town of Springfield.
Whatever he did, therefore, must
have been done in pursuance of his
duties as such member and not as
the attorney of Jefferson's father.
But if Lincoln did not read wide-
ly, neither did he read anything
lightly. He never contracted men-
tal indigestion by gorging his mind
with literary sweetmeats. He read
sound, strong things, and his men-
tal grasp was wonderful. He never
stopped until he had bounded a

[104]

LINCOLN

subject on all sides. He took noth-
ing upon faith but would know the
real truth, though he must, like
doubting Thomas, thrust his own
hand into the wound. The political
history of the United States he
knew in its minutest details, par-
ticularly those portions relating to
slavery, and his ability to interpret
historic facts and events in a philo-
sophic way has never been sur-
passed.

Lincoln ^s logic was the joint
product of honesty and common
sense. He had the courage to know
and to face the truth. He was will-
ing to go whithersoever his best
thought led him. He shared with
all great and noble minds that high,
unfaltering faith that the right

[105]

LINCOLN

must, in the end, trimnph. The
closing sentence of his speech at
Cooper Institute is the key to his
whole life — **Let us have faith
that right makes might, and in that
faith let us, to the end, dare to do
our duty as we understand it."

T N point of literary merit Lin-
coln's writings will bear com-
parison with the best in the Eng-
lish language. His literary style
was as unique as his personality—
as characteristic of him as the great
nose on his face. He wrote Saxon,
and demonstrated that a large vo-
cabulary and an ornate style are
not necessary to the forceful ex-
pression of thought. He addressed
himself first to the understanding

[106]

LINCOLN

and next to the heart. He was one
of the greatest masters of the art
of statement that has ever writ-
ten the English tongue. He knew
the som-ces of prejudice and the
springs of action. Pathos and hu-
mor are judiciously mingled in
whatever he said and wrote. He
it was who, with the hand of a mas-
ter, at last lovingly touched the
chords which again swelled "the
chorus of the Union." He could
put a chapter of argument into ten
words of speech.

A respectable volume could be
filled with passages illustrating the
strong, quaint style, apt illustra-
tions, rare ^sopian wisdom, and
— upon proper occasion — the pa-
thos and eloquence, which abound

[107]

LINCOLN

throughout the sayings and writ-
ings of Lincoln.

No illustration was too homely
to be used if it fitted the case. To
Hooker, who had proposed to cross
the Rappahannock at an inoppor-
tune time, Lincoln wrote, "I would
not take any risk of being entan-
gled upon the river like an ox
jumped half over a fence, and li-
able to be torn by dogs front and
rear, without a fair chance to gore
one way or kick the other."

Again, discussing a plan of cam-
paign— with an apt but inimitable
homeliness — he said, that if a cer-
tain general could not "skin" he
could ''hold a leg" for somebody
else; and his pithy saying that
"You can fool all of the people

[108]

LINCOLN

some of the time, and some of the
people all the time, but you can't
fool all the people all the time,"
has become an aphorism of Ameri-
can politics.*

In denying the broad charge
made by Douglas that he was in
favor of negro equality, Lincoln
pronounced, and on several occa-
sions repeated, his great definition
of the negro's rights. "In the
right," said he, "to eat the bread,
without leave of anybody, which
his own hand earns, the negro is
the equal of myself, of Judge Doug-

* An effort has been made to claim this saying
for P. T. Barnum. Mr. Barnum 's authorship has
not been proved, and there is at least one man of
my acquaintance living, "of sound mind and
memory," who heard Lincoln use that language
in a speech at Bloomington, 111., as early as 1856.

[109]

LINCOLN

las, or of any other man." Again,
speaking upon the same subject,
he said, "I protest against the
counterfeit logic which concludes,
because I do not want a black
woman for a slave I must neces-
sarily want her for a wife."

When Douglas proposed to set-
tle the vexed question of slavery
extension by "popular sovereign-
ty," Lincoln quaintly said this
meant, that "if any man chooses to
enslave another no third man shall
be allowed to object"; and the ef-
fort to maintain both the Dred
Scott decision and "popular sov-
ereignty" at the same time he said
meant, "that a thing may be law-
fully driven away from a place
where it has a lawful right to go."

[110]

LINCOLN

To a number of persons who
called to remonstrate against his
method of conducting the War, he,
with some impatience, said : ' ' Sup-
pose all you are worth was in gold
and you had put it into the hands of
Blondin to carry across Niagara —
would you shake the cable, or keep
shouting to him, 'Blondin, stand
up a little straight er! Blondin,
stoop a little more! Go a little
faster! Lean a little more to the
north! Lean a little more to the
south!' No — you would hold your
breath as well as your tongue, and
keep your hands off until he was
safe over. ' ' To another faultfinder,
who thought Lincoln's measures
too severe, he wrote, ''Would you
drop the War where it is, or would

[111]

LINCOLN

you prosecute it with elder-stock
squirts charged with rose water?"

In reprimanding a young officer
for quarrelling, he said, "Quarrel
not at all. . . . Yield larger
things to which you can show no
more than equal right, and yield
lesser ones though clearly your
own. Better give your path to a
dog than be bitten by him in con-
testing for the right. Even killing
the dog would not cure the bite."

To his friend, Joshua Speed, he
once said, ' ' Speed, die when I may,
I want it said of me by those
who knew me best, that I always
plucked a thistle and planted a
flower when I thought a flower
would grow."

He could be terribly severe with-

[112]

LINCOLN

out descending to scurrility. Al-
luding to Douglas' "don't care"
policy on slavery he said, "I sup-
pose the institution of slavery
really looks small to him. He is so
put up by nature that a lash upon
his back would hurt him, but a lash
on anybody else's back does not
hurt him."

Replying to a committee of la-
boring men who waited upon him
with an address in 1864, he closed
with these words, than which I
know of nothing wiser or better in
the English language :

" That some should be rich shows that
others may become rich, and hence is just
encouragement to industry and enterprise.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the
house of another, but let him labor diligently
and build one for himself, thus by example

[113]

LINCOLN

assuring that his own shall be safe from
violence when built."

T INCOLN was certainly not
without personal ambition,
and yet with only his own advance-
ment as an object he would have
lived and died in comparative ob-
scurity. Had he been called to the
bench he would have made a great
and just judge, like John Marshall.
It praises him to say that he could
never have made himself famous
except in a noble cause. Some have
indulged in fruitless speculations
as to what Lincoln would have been
had he been differently educated,
and as to whether or not, in later
years, he would have added to or
taken from his fame had not the

[114]

LINCOLN

cruel assassin struck him down.
Putting aside such idle thoughts,
we may well bow in devout thank-
fulness that in the tide of time
Lincoln came as a boon to our
country; and our hearts may swell
with a just pride that his career,
from birth to final martyrdom, fur-
nishes a most conclusive testimony
to the value of our free institutions.
What Washington had once been
to the American Colonies, Lincoln
proved himself to the American
Nation. It has been said that the
tears a good man staunches are
shed upon his grave, and on Lin-
coln's was certainly poured out a
flood of the keenest popular grief
which political history has known.
Even as one revered as the Saviour

[115]

LINCOLN

of a lost world was born in a stable
and cradled in a manger, so this
Liberator of a race — this saviour
of organized democracy in the
Western world — first heard the
lullaby of love in a rude frontier
cabin, and, with the earth of a
common humanity still clinging
upon him, went forth to the agonies
of martyrdom and fame. And there
upon the sacred mount of service
and suffering — behold, he, too, was
transfigured before the nations!
All the dross and contaminations of
early environment at length fell
away and left this lowly man of the
people standing lofty, and serene,
and spotless in the white light of
history; and when that murderous
pistol-shot at last stilled his tired

[116]

LINCOLN

heart and sped his weary soul to
its reward, the sounds of bitter
lamentation, coming in commingled
strains alike from the palace and
from the hovel, proclaimed but too
truly that "our common manhood
had lost a kinsman."

[117]

(/^ r/^^

ll. Zx^o^, i>k^. &^'^S^